


now i've caught you in my undertow

by jadeddiva



Series: sign your name across my heart [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-31 13:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1032353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma Swan has never had so many people love her before and the thought makes her gasp for breath, panic flooding through her body, making her fingertips tingle and her legs go weak.  Loving someone makes you vulnerable, makes the pain worse when they disappoint you.   Follows 'batten down the hatches before we all drown'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	now i've caught you in my undertow

Emma doesn’t sleep the night after they free Neal.   Instead, she stares at the stars in the sky and wonders just which one is the second star on the right, and if it is the left now because they are in Neverland, or if things remain the same even if they have traveled here. 

She concentrates so hard, her vision narrowing to the stars she can see through the canopy of trees because it’s the only thing she wants to see.  She doesn’t want to see Neal, hovering in her periphery like the lost boy he once was, like she’ll set him straight just because she saved him.  She doesn’t want to see her parents, who look miserable and angry and scared and so very concerned for her wellbeing (trust her, she is as well).  She doesn’t want to look at Hook – _Killian, he said his name was Killian_ – because when she looks at him, he’s looking back at her with a look she can’t really describe but one that looks so familiar it cuts her to her core.

Emma Swan has never had so many people love her before and the thought makes her gasp for breath, panic flooding through her body, making her fingertips tingle and her legs go weak.

Loving someone makes you vulnerable, makes the pain worse when they disappoint you.

She thought she loved her first foster family.  They were great, and there were five of them, but then she punched Allison Dockery in first grade because she took her apple at lunch and then everything changed.  Love became lost in the haze of foster care family after foster care family and then there was Neal, and everyone knows how well that ended.

Love is too expensive, too high of a cost for a moment of temporary happiness.  She much prefers the feeling of being self-sufficient and relying on no one, because letting yourself down comes with fewer consequences.

She shifts, the forest floor a hard reminder of just want they are doing out here and not safely home in Storybrooke.   She shifts, and her head turns, and she can see Hook – _Killian-_ on the other side of the clearing, eyes gazing heavenward.  She wonders just what he sees when he looks upward.

If he sees anything at all, if the stars don’t just blur together as he stares into space.

Emma doesn’t know what to think of his sudden declaration of love, if that is even what it was (there is a small part of her that separates it from a declaration of love to a declaration of intent, but she knows she’s just doing it to rationalize things).  She doesn’t know what to think of him, or it, or the gradual evolution that she’s watched him undergo from the pirate willing to get what he wants and only what he wants to the person willing to tell his darkest secret so that they can save Neal (is that something that he wants? It can’t be can it?)

She snuck away earlier to find him but the words weren’t there and they still aren’t now. 

She can still feel his lips against hers, the leather of his jacket beneath her fingertips, and her fingers twitch, like they want to thread themselves through his hair again (traitorous bastards these digits of hers).  

She shifts again, turning away from the stars and from _Killian_ and from everyone, turning her back to the fire and staring at the tree trunk nearby.  She tries not to think of any of them. 

Instead, she thinks about home – the comfortable bed in Mary Margaret’s apartment, ice cream sundaes with Henry.  She dreams of hot chocolate and walking Henry to the playground, and focuses only on what she remembers from her time in Storybrooke.

It works, for that night.

...

They start out the next morning, Neal leading the way with Killian in the rear.  Her parents flank her, neither wanting to talk to the other because there’s far too much to say.  She is where she is because Neal wants to talk to her, to say that he’ll fight for her and that he’s sorry, but she doesn’t want to hear it.  She hangs back towards Killian because he doesn’t say anything to her at all. 

Whatever emotions he felt yesterday, they are clearly hidden today - but not underneath the swagger she’s used to.  He’s more reserved and focused, and she notice he doesn’t drink from his flask like he usually does.

She tries to make conversation.  “Before you got your nickname,” she asks, slowing down her pace so that they walk side-by-side, “you said your name was Killian.”

“Aye,” he says, slowly, not looking at her completely but rather out of the corner of his eye, like he’s apprehensive about the direction this conversation is going.  “Killian Jones.”

“Were you always a pirate?” she asks.  He shakes his head.

“I told you I’ve been to Neverland before.  The first time I was an officer in the King’s navy, and I came with my brother,” Killian says.  He pauses.  “I wasn’t a pirate until I lost him.”

Emma is silent, processing the information he is giving her.  “You knew about the spring because of your brother.”

“I brought him out of Neverland.  I should never have done that,” he says, reaching forward to hold up a tree branch with his hook so it doesn’t smack Emma in the face.

“Thanks,” she says.  “But you didn’t know.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he grunts, clearly wanting to end the conversation.  “I am still alive, and he is still dead.”  He pauses.  “We never should have come in the first place.”

They reach a clearing, and while everyone is debating where to go, Emma thinks about loss, and Killian, and how far a naval officer falls to become a pirate. She glances at him, looking off into the distance, conferring with David, and she wonders what else there is to know about him.

...

They camp that night in the midst of the forest, and Emma starts the fire with her magic once again.  They eat granola bars that Mary Margaret packed with a rabbit that she also caught, and Emma finds that she isn’t hungry.  She wants nothing more than to find her son and to get the hell out of his place, and her emotions churn inside her, making her full enough already.

Neal sits beside her.  Her parents sit beside each other.  Killian is nowhere to be found.

“You look for him,” Neal points out gently.  “Hook.  When he’s not in your line of sight, you look for him.”

“Always have an exit,” she tells Neal.  “We did come on his ship after all.”

“It’s weird,” Neal says.  “What he said to you in the cave.  What he said about my mother, and now you…”

Emma nudges the dirt with her toe, kicking a stone out of the way.  She thinks too much about everything these days (which is new because she is so used to trying _not_ to care).   “Yeah, I guess.” 

Neal pauses.  “Do you…?” he leaves the question open.  She swallows a bite of her granola bar.

“I don’t know,” she says, because she’s being honest.  “I don’t know what I think about any of this.”

“Except for me,” Neal points out.  “You know what you think about me.”

Emma sighs, runs her hands through her hair. “I’ve had a lot longer to think about how I feel about you.”  It’s the truth, pure and simple, because she has had ten years to think about Neal and what he means to her.  She loves him and she hates him and she wants to close the door behind her which she will never be able to do because he will always be there in Henry’s life. 

She hasn’t had nearly as long to think about Killian, or her parents, and so she flip-flops from being grateful for their love and being so angry that someone should dare love her and threaten her peaceful solitary existence.

“Emma.”  Neal’s eyes implore her to continue the conversation, to say things that she can’t possibly say, not when she’s so overwhelmed by everything that she can’t even breathe.   Instead, she reaches out to squeeze his forearm gently.

“We’ll get Henry back,” she tells him.  It is not the answer to his question but it is the only thing she wants to talk to him about until she figures out everything in her life. 

She’ll give Neal this much: when she stands and walks to the other side of the fire, to where her parents sit, he doesn’t follow her. 

He doesn’t push, nor does he say anything to Killian about the cave.  He is perfectly polite though wary throughout the day, and when Killian returns to the fire that night, Neal offers him a granola bar which Killian accepts, albeit warily.  They are being amicable to appease her, which helps her fall asleep a little easier tonight.

…

Emma doesn’t stay asleep, and when she wakes she finds Killian’s place by the fire vacant.  

She finds him on a cliff ledge, overlooking a waterfall.  There is a rainbow in the mist even though it is night in Neverland, and it doesn’t surprise her as much as she thinks it should.

She’s getting too used to these things.

Emma stands behind him, not moving, not wanting to do anything but stare at the man and the waterfall and just be here, in the moment.   She feels steadier right now than she’s felt in a long time.

She doesn’t know what she feels about Killian other than she doesn’t want to think.  She doesn’t regret kissing him, or watching them, or feeling the way she does in his company.  She does appreciate what she has with him, the easiness that comes from no expectations.  To Killian, she is just Emma, a lost girl looking for her son.  She is not a daughter or a mother or a princess or an abandoned lover.  She is just Emma, and that seems to be enough for him.

Emma slips her hand into his good one, feels him squeeze her fingers.  His hand is warm, and she can hear the slight intake of breath when their palms touch.  

“Just this,” she tells him.  He doesn’t turn, doesn’t look at her, but she feels him nod.  

She wonders if she is being greedy, to take this moment from him, but he shifts closer, presses his shoulder against hers, and she leans her head on his shoulder.  She thinks that she feels his lips against her hair, but she tries not to think too hard.

Maybe this is love.  Maybe this will be what she needs.  But she doesn’t know, so she stands there beside him, shoulders touching, holding his hand and staring out at a strange waterfall in a strange land with a constantly shifting landscape, and for the first time in days, she feels at ease.


End file.
